


the wretched of the earth

by sunflowerbright



Series: Hotel California [14]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Anxiety Disorder, Depression, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Please talk to me,” Enjolras says, pulling away only far enough to form the words, and he’s gotten into such a habit of saying please to Grantaire, as if he needs to plead, as if he couldn’t just demand and Grantaire would offer his very soul on a silver-platter.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wretched of the earth

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mentions of suicide in this chapter. Also warning for a bit more violence in this part than in the others, as well as a panic attack that is at least halfway relating to alcohol abuse as well, though the warnings for that should be in place in the tags. I would judge it to not be worse than some of the other things this story has already dealt with, but I am putting this here just in case.

 

It’s in the park where Jehan first regained his memories that he finds her, and isn’t that just weird and somehow lovely, in a kind of morbid way. She’s still wearing her clothes from the hospital where she’s a nurse, and its making Jehan want to just run up to her and yell about Cosette, tell Fantine that they’re in the same line of work, that Cosette choose a similar path to a woman she never even met but still loved her so much.

He also wants to go up and yell at her for being here and not with Cosette, for not already knowing what he wants to tell her, because she should: even if she had her reasons for giving her up when she was born, why wouldn’t she want to meet her now? Cosette is all smiles and kind words and she can play the ukulele and makes fantastic tea, and Jehan can feel himself getting irrationally angry at this woman he doesn’t even know, until Courfeyrac puts a hand on his shoulder, frowning slightly.

“You okay there?”

“I’m fine,” Jehan mumbles. He is. He really is.

He’s worried sick about their friends who have all decided to throw caution to the wind and behave as foolishly as they can, but yeah. He’s fine.

“You don’t have to do this,” Courfeyrac says then, and it’s in his voice, the _I could do it for you_ , because he would, would do anything he was asked if it meant someone he cared about was in less discomfort (and Jehan knows he is too much the same, that they all are, co-dependant as they have become, the lot of them), but he also knows that he needs to do this.

If he can convince this woman to help then maybe they have a better chance. At whatever this is. Maybe.

She’s pretty, Jehan can tell from here: her hair is big and wild, all dark, blonde curls that it seems Cosette didn’t inherit completely, but somehow it makes the woman’s heart-shaped face stand out even more. He’s too far away to see the colour of her eyes, but they are round and sparkle as she laughs at the dark-haired woman sitting opposite from her, holding her hand. It’s only a few more minutes before the other woman pushes back her wheelchair, kissing Fantine goodbye and waving as she leaves.

And then Fantine turns and stares directly at their very bad hiding place by the tree, one eyebrow raised as if in challenge.

“Oh, shit,” Courfeyrac mutters, and Jehan almost wants to laugh, but he also feels sheepish now, the anger from before evaporating in the face of their suddenly very awkward situation. Courfeyrac walks with him as he steps forward. Fantine waits patiently for them.

“Hello,” she says, giving them a slight smile as they reach the bench she’s sitting on. “You’re Jean Prouvaire, right? And this is your… boyfriend?”

“I’m Courfeyrac,” the man turns his mega-watt smile on. Fantine doesn’t look affected. Jehan almost wants to fist-bump her: even Enjolras is sometimes dazzled by that smile, like someone had turned the light on suddenly and blinded him, and he’d known Courfeyrac since they were very young. “I really like your hair.”

“Thanks sweetheart, but let’s not make your boyfriend jealous here.” She turns back to Jehan. “How did you find me?”

“You’re hiding?” Jehan asks, trying to get the upper-hand. “Out in plain sight?”

“Please answer my question.”

“Your daughter is missing,” he says then, diving right in, and it’s _there,_ her eyes widening, a sharp intake of breath, even as a calm mask slips back over her shocked features in a manner of seconds. She cares. She does.

“You didn’t know.”

“I knew about your two other friends,” she says. “The painter and the Thénardier girl. I wasn’t aware that Cosette was involved in that particular incident.”

“She wasn’t. She’s gone to get them back.”

Fantine actually swears, colourfully enough to make a sailor blush. Or more specifically, to make Courfeyrac’s eyes widen, which is practically the same.

“I am going to _kill him_.”

“Fantine,” Courfeyrac interrupts now, moving a little in front of Jehan. “I can call you Fantine right? We realise you’re working for Mabeuf. We also realise that Mabeuf is a huge manipulator, even if he’s working for someone else and are under orders, and that he must’ve basically told you to stay away from your daughter, because I honestly cannot imagine any other way that you’d want to. So please, if you have any kind of love left for her, help us?”

She stares at him.

“This wasn’t meant to happen,” she says then. “Cosette was never supposed to meet you. It was… it was a _mistake_.” She shuts her mouth tightly, as if she’s said too much, but then she sighs, her shoulder slumping, all of the fight leaving her body: she suddenly looks ten years older. She suddenly looks like a mother who was kept from her child for too long.

“He promised that if I worked for him,” she begins again. “If I worked for him, with him, getting the new Recruits, giving you your memories when you were ready, if I did that, then he’d make sure Cosette was safe: he’d make sure she wouldn’t have to face any kind of test, wouldn’t have to fight, wouldn’t… but I had to wait to see her. I could bring her in too much danger. And I could never… I wasn’t allowed to be too close,” she looks up at them again, her hands clenched. “She wasn’t supposed to even meet you. She wasn’t supposed to get involved.”

“I’m sorry,” Jehan says. “But she is now. And she needs your help.”

“Tell her Javert has her,” Anne’s voice sounds from beside him, and Jehan almost jumps in shock, Courfeyrac’s quick hand on his arm steadying him. Jehan frowns.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s the truth,” Anne insists. “Tell her. She’ll help. She’ll be convinced.”

Jehan hesitates only for a little while, before passing the message on. He watches as Fantine pales.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, Javert is the one who has her.”

“That’s not possible,” her voice is sharp, angry.

“What do you mean, it isn’t possible?” Courfeyrac asks.

“Because he’s dead! He killed himself, two weeks ago. I know. We found his body, I helped bury him. Javert is dead.”

 

 

 

*

 

 

“Do you remember when Azelma broke her arm?” Eponine’s voice doesn’t quite startle him, because it is soft and low, but it does rather sharply pull him out of the bleak fountain that is his thoughts.

“Yeah,” Grantaire mumbles, a bit confused as to why she is bringing this up now, when they’re sitting leaned against a tree in this damn forest that they apparently still can’t get out of, waiting for the others to come up with something to do, because they’re all out of their depth really.

“She was such a crybaby when she was little, but she hardly made a sound when we were at the hospital She wasn’t even that old. Mum and dad weren’t there. They were too busy: we had to take her. I think maybe that’s when she started thinking we were her parents instead of them.”

“We’re not her parents. We’re not anyone’s parents.”

“We’re as good as, for her at least. And for Gavroche.”

“I couldn’t ever be anyone’s parent.”

“You’ve always taken care of us.”

 _Because I had to,_ he thinks. _It really wasn’t a fucking choice. Nothing in my life has ever been a choice I would make for myself._

“And now,” Eponine continues. “You’re thinking that you’ve done a horrible job of it, and that you hate us for dragging you into a stupid rag-tag family, and you’re thinking that because, whatever little speck of happiness it gives you, you don’t think you deserve it.”

“Eponine, please shut up.”

“And when you and Enjolras finally get around to talking about your memories coming back, you are going to get angry at him no matter what he says or does, because that’s just what you do. You can’t accept a compliment, you won’t hear nice things about yourself, because if you had to admit to your good qualities, you’d also have to own up to them, and you’re too scared to do that. You think, if you admit that you’re at least half-way decent at something, then people will hate you as soon as you’re not, even though you always forgive everyone, time and time again when they make mistakes.”

“I told you to stop,” he’s too tired to yell at her. But he really wants to yell at her.

“You’re not even listening to me,” Eponine insists.

“I wouldn’t be angry with you if I wasn’t.”

“You never listen. That’s your problem.” She gets up from her spot, turning slightly to look down at him. “They’re counting on us to come back, even if Azelma likes to boast that she’s old enough to take care of herself and Gav likes to pretend that he doesn’t need anyone. They need me back and they need you back.”

He doesn’t reply, and half expects her to just walk over to the others, but she keeps standing there, arms folded and looking at him, until he gets up as well and walks with her.

They’re in the bunker that was apparently the HQ of whoever kidnapped them, and they’ve managed to find supplies and the packs Enjolras and Gabriel had with them, stored in there: a bag that looks like Cosette’s is there as well, and Grantaire suddenly feels like he’s not getting enough air into his lungs. Where the hell had they taken her? Was she going to be alright? No-one is asking that, it seems, instead they’re looking over a map, Naveen trying to pin-point where they are from what he knows about this particular Pocket. Which is exactly what Grantaire is going to keep calling it now: it’s making him feel like a tiny Lego-figure. And it’s distracting him from the anger and the panic that’s welling up.

“Mabeuf said you guys were taking care of Javert,” he says then, because he can’t stop it entirely. The three men at the table stop talking, all lifting their heads in a weirdly synchronized move to look at him. He very determinedly looks at Gabriel.

“We were… we were trying,” Gabriel mumbles, stutters, falters, because Enjolras is glaring at him now. “I wasn’t... Mabeuf had sent someone else out to talk to him.”

“Who?”

Gabriel hesitates, and then sighs. “Fantine,” he says. “Cosette’s mother. But I don’t think she found him.”

“Evidently not.”

“Well, he was hanging out with this lot, wasn’t he?” Gabriel suddenly says, turning around to face Naveen.

“Javert first came into contact with us nearly two months ago,” the man says. “We had no reason to distrust him: he had failed Ana-Maria’s test, and furthermore, she has no reason to spy on us.”

“And you didn’t think he was maybe spying for Michael instead?” Gabriel asks, voice harsh. Naveen frowns.

“We have regulations, we’d made as sure as possible…”

“Apparently not sure enough.”

“Javert shot Grantaire less than a month ago,” Enjolras’ voice cuts through the others, who immediately fall silent. “He was with you at that time, you claim.”

Naveen looks shocked. “He… I didn’t know of that.”

“He seemed distressed,” Grantaire mumbles, ignoring Enjolras’ sharp look, Eponine’s elbow to his ribs: it has become almost automatic, defending the man, because while he remembers gunfire and a traitor at the barricade ( _traitor, traitor,_ _traitor, we’re two peas in a pod_ ) he also remembers a voice filled with desperation and eyes wide and scared.

“He was completely out of it, like he thought the memories were hallucinations and was shocked to see me there. Why would he be shocked if he was with you, and knew they were real?”

“I do not know,” Naveen admits. “He seemed… stable, when I talked to him. Granted, I did not have the most to do with him while he was here: Ai usually handles the new recruits.”

“Who’s in charge of your camp?” Enjolras asks.

“Her name is Lianna. But I fear she was killed when we came under attack,” he sounds sad but also resigned, as if this is something that had been suspected. Grantaire realizes with a pang that it had been: that expecting an attack was the normality of their situation. Of his situation, now. “Ai would be in charge now, if she escaped. I can get a hold of her if we get back to our camp.”

“Can she help us find Cosette?” Eponine asks. “Because we’re not leaving without her.”

Enjolras looks like he wants to argue, like he wants to say _you two are_ , but he at least knows better than to argue with Eponine over something like this. Grantaire wonders if he’s going to pick it up later, if he’s going to focus all of his attention on him then, and make him stay behind. It would be too like him.  

“She can help, yes,” Naveen says, and it’s the last words he ever says, because there is glass shattering and his body falls to the ground with a horrible sound, blood pooling around him.

“Get down!” Gabriel shouts, which is really quite unnecessary, because they all already have, ducking as more bullets fly through the air. Grantaire is crouching over Eponine almost, his heart beating like crazy, and it isn’t until the shots have stopped that he realizes Enjolras hand is holding his shirt tightly.

Or at least he thinks it’s over: it starts again, and he’s yanked down even further by said hand, practically lying under the table for shelter, and hey, isn’t that kind of familiar?

Except it isn’t really to him: he’d been sleeping with his head _on_ a table, instead, not using it as a make-shift shield, not protecting his friends with his own body.

He’d done none of this before.

He’d gotten drunk instead.

The gunfire seems to stop for a few more seconds. The air almost goes still with the sudden silence.

“The exit!” Eponine hisses, and slides away from his half-grip on her, moving towards the door surprisingly fast, and he can _see_ it, can see her reach out and grasp hold of the gun to let it fire directly into her chest, _he can see her dying_ , but then he realizes that she’s fine and out of the door now, and really, the most sensible thing to do right now would possibly be to follow her.

They somehow make it outside unscathed, which is a miracle, especially considering that they’re them, and if they did miracles, they wouldn’t be here to start with. The shooting starts again, still from the other side of the building, out of range of them – Grantaire rather thinks they haven’t been spotted leaving, which is really just an invitation to take the opportunity and _run._

Grantaire is not in bad shape, even though his habits may seem like he lives a life in that direction: he can grapple with the best of them in close fights, and though he hasn’t been attending since he decided to run away in the face of Enjolras discovering his feelings, he had been at the top of his fencing-class for nearly a year now.

Running for his life like this, with gunshots ringing through the air still makes his lung burn though, makes his knees shake, and he thinks the only thing keeping him going is fear. And even the fear is almost crippling: he hadn’t been afraid the last time his world had been filled with flames, but perhaps that was because he saw no escape. There is a tiny window now, a sliver of light that he finds himself desperate to reach.

This, Grantaire thinks, is why he hates hope: it makes him _panic_ , because if he stops running now, like his nerves are screaming for him to do, _stop running, curl down on the forest-floor_ , if he stops then it’ll be his choice. He won’t be cornered, he won’t have anything to do but accept his fate.

It’ll be a choice, and he’ll be all the more pathetic for it.

There is a sound like an explosion right behind him, and Grantaire stumbles, arms jolting in pain as they break his fall, palms scraping against wood and rough ground: he stumbles as he tries to get up, nearly tripping over a broken branch, and fuck it all, forests really weren’t for racing, why couldn’t it have been a nice Parisian street or something, where they at least know where they’re going?

It’s then he realizes that he is on his own, but there is little time to panic over the thought, because the ground just beside him is ripped to pieces with a bang loud enough to make his ears scream, and he throws himself to the side, slipping in sand turned to mud by water, scraping knees and hands and skin as he gracelessly falls over the side, rolling on the forest floor like some idiot falling on ice. He hisses as he comes to a stop, his shin impacting with a sharp stone, making pain shoot from his leg all through his body.

“Fuck!” Grantaire exclaims, which is probably a really fucking dumb idea when someone with murderous intents are pursuing him, and he is currently too injured to stand, let alone run, because _Jesus fucking Christ and all the angels in fucking Heaven,_ his leg is bleeding and there’s dirt in it and there is too much blood, and he’s shaking and cursing himself, just as hands grab at him from behind, pulling him backwards under the shade of a fallen tree: his scream is muffled by one of the hands quickly clasping over his mouth.

“It’s me!” Enjolras’ voice hisses in his ear, just as footsteps kick through the leaves over them: his tension does not easy, and Enjolras too lies coiled and tense behind him, ready to move quick at any moment. Grantaire wants to tell him that _he_ can’t move if it should come to it, the world is spinning, he’s dizzy with pain and the smell of blood, if he tries to run now he’ll fail and if Enjolras tries to help him, they’ll both die.

Again. They’ll both die again.

The foot-steps move away, and he breathes an inner sigh of relief: neither of them move, however, for what feels like ages: Grantaire can feel his jeans around the wound getting soaked with blood, though by the time Enjolras shifts a little behind him, it seems like it has also started to crust over: no dying of blood-loss today, it seems.

“Are you hurt?” Enjolras asks, voice still low, as he sits up, leaves falling out of his air: it would be almost comical, his hair messed up, dirt on his neck and down his side, if it wasn’t because he still looks breathtakingly beautiful like that, and Grantaire realizes a part of him hadn’t expected to ever see Enjolras again, had never thought he would get so lucky, and now the man is touching him, cradling his face in one hand and frowning.

“Grantaire?”

“I’m… uh, my leg is hurt,” he mumbles, attention snapping back to the pain in his leg and _fuck,_ isn’t that supposed to wear off? It feels even worse now.

Enjolras curses as he sees the wound, and Grantaire almost wants to mirror him when he sees it for himself, because _seeing it_ of course makes it hurt _even more_ , and fucking hell, how is everyone always calling Bossuet the unlucky one, when Grantaire practically goes to the school of unfortunate incidents, graduating with top honours?

“I need you to sit up a bit,” Enjolras says then, taking hold of his arm to help steady him, and Grantaire bravely pretends the touch isn’t shooting thrills through his body, Enjolras’ hand warm even through his jacket. He pushes himself up a little, ignoring the scratches on his hands, trying to bend his leg so he can look at it a little closer, before noticing that Enjolras apparently has Cosette’s bag with him.

“How the hell did you get that?”

“Took the nearest one when they started firing,” Enjolras absently mutters, pulling out a first-aid kit. “I figured any kind of supplies were better than no supplies.”

Such a boy-scout. Grantaire would point that out just to watch Enjolras frown and start a rant about how the boy-scouts as an institution is extremely flawed and problematic, but his leg hurts and his throat is _aching._ His hands are shaking. It isn’t just from the pain.

“She wouldn’t happen to have any brandy in there, would she?” he asks, half-laughing in an attempt to mask the genuine question as humour even though Enjolras _will know_ , and also, that’s all wrong, he almost never drinks brandy unless there isn’t anything else, he prefers…

He had never preferred brandy, but if there had been no wine left, brandy would quite do the trick. He’d had it quite often, in fact, when Jehan had smoked the last of his opium and when his own glass had been empty of wine: brandy, mixed with anything, made his head spin in a wonderful way, much akin to the pipe. Yes, he’d had a lot of brandy.

In another life.

“No,” Enjolras mutters. “I’m probably going to have to cut this off,” he says, pulling slightly at the darkened fabric: Grantaire says nothing, would make a quip _‘you’re hopefully not talking about my leg’,_ but his head hurts too much to make the joke form properly. He merely watches as Enjolras pulls scissors out of the first-aid kit, clenches his teeth as the ruined jeans shifts against his wound, grinding them together as Enjolras pours water and antiseptic over to loosen the fabric enough to pull it away entirely – the wound starts bleeding again as he does, the antiseptic stinging: Grantaire wants to swear, but he doesn’t. Enjolras pours more on a cloth and carefully presses it against the wound, and Grantaire’s vision goes white for just a second, because _fuck_ , he’s had cuts and scrapes before, he’s been bleeding on the cold ground, but he’s usually been drunk and half-way to unconsciousness, never achingly sober in the middle of a forest with Enjolras’ eyes dark with worry, because he apparently cares that Grantaire is hurt and will now slow them down, cares even though he _shouldn’t,_ shouldn’t want anything to do with him.

Enjolras wraps gauze around it in silence after cleaning out as much dirt as he can, and it does feel slightly better, the other man’s touches light and warm against the chill that is setting in the forest: Grantaire thinks it probably isn’t broken, it has just taken a rather bad hit.

“Give me your hands,” Enjolras says then, and Grantaire automatically obeys to the no-nonsense voice, hardly flinching as Enjolras rubs more antiseptic into the cuts there: it only stings a little, the scratches small and it helps to distract from the headache beginning to form just behind his eyelids.

Fuck it all, but he really needs a drink. How long had it been? He hadn’t been drinking as much as he used to for almost three weeks, because of the drugs the hospital had put him on, but they had been an okay replacement for what he’s used to, but whatever remained has been high-kicked out of his system by the adrenaline of the last few hours, and he doesn’t even _know_ if it’s been one day or two days, only knows that night is falling now and Enjolras is sitting beside him oddly quiet in a way Enjolras never is, and his blood is burning in his veins because they’re _lacking._

Enjolras is still holding his hands now, and his eyes are soft as he looks at him, and Grantaire wants to curl himself into a ball and cry, wants to down the fucking bottle of antiseptic for whatever kind of formula might be in it, anything to settle the nerves running along his arms and spine, making him shake.

“We need to find the others,” Grantaire mumbles, meaning to get up, but finds he can’t move, especially not when Enjolras hands tighten shortly over his, a clear sign for him to stay put.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, he doesn’t have even the semblance of will-power it takes to deny Enjolras, not now. He lacks whatever courage he gains whenever the alcohol thrums through his body.

“They’re fine,” Enjolras says. “We split up to distract them: Gabriel is going to send me the signal once we’re in the clear to get moving again.”

Grantaire clenches his jaw. “You left Eponine with _him_? On purpose?!”

“He won’t hurt her,” Enjolras insists, for some damn reason. “He’s the one that got us this far.”

“Great, you’ve hitched a ride with the man who shot us,” Grantaire’s voice breaks over the last part of that sentence, because that man – Gabriel or whatever the hell he wanted to call himself – had been the last thing he’d seen, that _face_ is so vivid in his mind right now that he may as well be right before him, and oh yeah, he’d killed not only him but _Enjolras_ as well.

“He is not going to do anything,” Enjolras insists. “I know my judgment may have been wrong in the past, but Eponine is going to be fine with him. And in any case, I rather think she can take care of herself: between the two of them, Gabriel doesn’t stand much of a chance. I’ve seen her take on Bahorel.”

He says the last bit with a small smile, but Grantaire can’t laugh with him, can’t _focus_ , even if that is the truth of it, even if Gabriel had been in that cage with them, had almost gotten killed with them (this time, last time he had been trying to kill them, _last time he had killed them!)_

“Please trust me on this,” Enjolras says then, gently, and Grantaire’s breath hitches again, for different reasons now. “I’m going to get both of you home,” he continues. “I’m going to keep you safe. I promised that I would, and I’m going to.”

He had said that. He had made a promise: and Enjolras is never one to go back on a promise spoken, even if said promise was made to one without morals himself.

He is not crying. He’s not.

But he is, and Enjolras is leaning forward again, cradling his face _again_ , as if Grantaire is something he wants to touch, and his eyes fall shut as Enjolras leans his forehead against his, mouth just a hairsbreadth away.

“I was so worried,” he whispers. “I was so scared.”

 _Of what_ , Grantaire wants to ask as Enjolras kisses him, a point of warmth that he wants to cling to as much as he wants to push him away and ask. _Of what, of what, of what. What would make you scared, my dear, fearless leader, what will have you so frightened?_

Enjolras keeps him close even as Grantaire doesn’t move, doesn’t touch, afraid to shatter something he knows he’ll have to let go of soon either way, long fingers shifting against the nape of his neck, tickling slightly and making his insides ache in yearning, _fuck_ , it isn’t fair, and Enjolras should be worried about that, he is usually pretty upset about unfairness, but he’s still holding Grantaire like he’s been scared of never getting to do that again.

He’s still crying, and he’s thankful that Enjolras doesn’t seem to mind, ignoring it in favour of breathing some warmth back into him, because if he did, if he asked what was wrong, he knows he would break down completely, fuck it all to hell he’s already on the verge of it, shaking and hurting all over, his head like a can of black paint exploding on a canvas that used to be white or something close to it.

“Please talk to me,” Enjolras says, pulling away only far enough to form the words, and he’s gotten into such a habit of saying _please_ to Grantaire, as if he needs to plead, as if he couldn’t just demand and Grantaire would offer his very soul on a silver-platter: which might be a literal option, considering.

Enjolras is asking him to speak, so he does.

“I need a fucking drink.”

Enjolras starts a little, if from the profanity or the actual content of that sentence, and his eyes narrows briefly, before he sighs.

“You also need a bath and a shave, and probably something to eat. I have water…”

“No, Enjolras,” he whispers, _I love to hear you talking, but please shut up and listen._ “I really need a drink. I really fucking, _fucking hell_ , I really need a drink right fucking now.”

The hand on his neck shifts up into his hair and tightens slightly.

“You’re going to be fine,” Enjolras tells him, but really, what does he know? “Grantaire, listen to me, you’re fine.”

“I-I’m not.” It’s not helping.

It’s a very simple statement that Enjolras keeps denying, for some reason. He has never been _fine._ Not even now, being pulled even closer to the man he reveres, resting his head against his shoulder, burying his face in his jacket: Enjolras smells like earth and rosemary and distress. Which is an actual smell, his mind insists: its faint sweat and gunpowder. It’s familiar.

“You are,” Enjolras keeps muttering, nose brushing his hair, the tip of his ear. “I didn’t come all this way for it to fall apart now, okay? So please, stay with me, please Grantaire, just a little while longer and we’re home, I promise. Please stay.”

He wants to let out a sound of surprise, but he just ends up sobbing into Enjolras’ shoulder instead, feeling low and pathetic and _thirsty and aching_ as Enjolras keeps assuring him, keeps comforting him, stroking his back and whispering nothings, words that blur together and form only one sentence.

Stay with me. _Stay with me._ Will you take your stand with me?

He hadn’t. He hadn’t. _He fucking hadn’t._

“Tell me what to do,” Enjolras’ voice is desperate, and it only just breaks through. “Please, if there’s anything I can do, tell me.”

He would. He knows Enjolras wants to help, much as he doesn’t deserve it. So he would answer, only he can’t. He is too busy choking on his own shame.

“Do you need me to keep talking?” Enjolras asks then, and Grantaire thinks of the other man going silent, of having nothing but the sounds of the forest around him for company, and he manages to nod.

“Alright,” Enjolras shifts slightly, still holding him, but Grantaire still reaches up to curl trembling fingers around the edge of the man’s jacket, afraid that he’ll pull away, knowing he should fucking just let him if that’s what he wants, but too desperate to do anything but hold on. “Maybe you’ll be happy to know that Cosette and I have become quite good friends in the last few days. Which honestly just makes me worry about her more right now. We will get her back though: we got you back, we can save her as well. I won’t stop until we have. But I’m supposed to be distracting you, this isn’t going very well. Either way: I’ll admit a lot of my dislike for her as being quite petty. I was angry that she had gotten you hurt - except of course it wasn’t her fault. I have apologised to her, I’ll have you know. You must be proud of how much I’ve matured. But yes, I was angry with her after you had gotten so hurt, and I was perhaps also quite jealous,” he drops a kiss to his head. “Very jealous actually. She got a lot of your attention, at a time when you weren’t giving much to me, and that hurt a lot, so spoiled brat that I apparently am, I took it out on her, unfortunately. We’re lucky she can hold her own. She’s a great friend. And she’s been worried about you, about Eponine. We all have. I thought…” he stops to take a deep breath. Grantaire’s head is spinning: he needs air as well. He wonders if Enjolras will lend him some.

“I thought the worst had happened,” Enjolras continues, and his grip on Grantaire tightens. “I thought you were lost to me forever, that I would have to spend the rest of my life searching in vain, and when I saw you there in the cage earlier I thought my heart would burst I was so happy. Is that how you feel, how you’ve felt?”

“Yes,” Grantaire gets out, his voice strained: Enjolras tenses in surprise over the fact that he had answered, but then Grantaire can almost hear him smile.

“I cannot tell you… I cannot begin to properly express how… if…” he stops himself with a sigh. “I’m terrible at this.”

It is an odd thought: Enjolras is good at almost everything. Except being around cats. For some reason, Enjolras and cats simply do not seem to fit together.

“Grantaire, why are you laughing?” Enjolras sounds slightly put-out, but mostly just bewildered: Grantaire’s giggling fades off.

“Cats,” he mumbles, and really, there are still tears streaming down his face, even though the sobs have subsided, allowing him to breathe just a bit easier: it does not quite loosen the knot of panic in his chest, but it is better than nothing. It is almost as good as Enjolras fingers still stroking the skin on his neck.

“… why are you talking about cats?”

Grantaire starts laughing again, pressing himself closer. “Fucking hell,” he mumbles. “I just… I can’t believe you came all this way to find me.”

“I’d do anything for you,” Enjolras states. “I love you.”

Grantaire stops laughing. On the other hand, his head has also stopped spinning out of control, leaving only the headache and a low, keening noise in the back of his mind, like someone drilling in the distance. Enjolras may as well have slapped him.

He would almost rather Enjolras had slapped him.

The silence stretches out until it becomes awkward: the sunlight is fading even more now, and it’s going to be completely dark soon. They’re going to have to find shelter, somehow, with Grantaire’s leg hurt like this and his limbs shaking. They’re going to have to do something, once he relearns how to move again.

Right now he fucking can’t.

“Cosette did mention that you wouldn’t believe me,” Enjolras mumbles. “But I mean it. I love you, Grantaire, I do, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier, so sorry I couldn’t just own up, but I needed you to hear it…”

He stops as Grantaire pulls away from him.

“We need to find somewhere to stay,” he says. “It’s going to get cold.”

Enjolras blinks. “Grantaire…” _‘Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking…’_

“Enjolras, _shut up_.”

He flinches, and Grantaire wants to take it back, wants to make the anguish in Enjolras eyes go away, but then the other man steels himself before he can apologise, before he can beg for forgiveness. He’s started shaking again.

“Right,” Enjolras says. “This conversation isn’t over,” but he gets up, extending a hand to help Grantaire to his feet as well: or foot really, his right leg still protesting if he puts any sort of weight on it. “If we’re in the part of the forest I think we are, there should be an old cabin nearby. Naveen said only he and two others from the camp knew about it.”

Grantaire gets a lump in his throat at the thought of Naveen: if their situation wasn’t so desperate he’d demand they go back to… fuck, to bury him or something. To do anything. He wonders what whoever attacked him has done with the man’s body.

Fuck, but he’d died right in front of them. Grantaire isn’t… it is too much like Eponine, like the others, like his friends who he hadn’t even seen die. It is too much.

Actually getting forward requires him to lean against Enjolras, throwing one arm over his shoulders, Enjolras arm circling his waist, keeping him upright. It is slow-going, and it is on the tip of Grantaire’s tongue to ask Enjolras to simply leave him, but he knows it is useless, knows Enjolras would never, and truth be told, he is too scared that the man might actually do it, might actually _look at him_ and let go in a moment of clarity.

It is almost pitch-black night when they finally find the cabin, what little moonlight comes through the thick of the forest the only reason they even see it: it is not locked, but there is a key hanging from the door, and Enjolras quickly turns it as soon as they are inside, helping Grantaire over to the small cot right after.

It is surprisingly cosy, for a cabin right in the middle of the woods: it has a small kitchenette in the corner, a cot and a working-table with a worn chair, pressed in next to a bookshelf filled with maps and such. A door leads into a small bathroom, and Enjolras tests the water to see if it still runs: it does, though the pipes starts out groaning in protest after having been unused for god knows how long.

“Here,” Enjolras comes back and presses a bottle of water into his hand: he keeps holding on, and Grantaire realises it’s to make sure his persistent shaking doesn’t make him spill it everywhere, and he is thankful as he drinks almost all of it, even as it is achingly humiliating to have Enjolras treat him this way, as if he is some porcelain doll who needs hand-feeding. Enjolras lets go as soon as he’s finished the bottle, walking back into the bathroom to go through the cabinets in there: Grantaire can hear him washing quickly.

“I think there are some clothes here that might fit you,” he says then, coming back out with dark pants and a grey shirt, the dirt out of his hair and off his skin. “If you want to change.”

Grantaire clenches his teeth, ignoring the burn in his cheeks. “You’re going to have to help me.”

Enjolras pins his gaze to him. “I don’t mind,” he says, and Grantaire knows he means it, but it does not help the flush of shame still striding along across his skin. He gets the shirt off easily enough himself, the other only a little too big in the shoulders and long in the sleeves, but Enjolras has to kneel down and help him with the trousers, carefully as to not jostle his injured leg too much. It is even more awkward getting the other set on, and Grantaire ends up lying on his back as Enjolras pulls them on for him, feeling quite ridiculous.

“This isn’t going very well: I’m more used to taking clothes off you,” Enjolras says then, and his smile is so very tentative as he looks at Grantaire that it makes his heart ache.

“Yeah,” he mutters, though his own smile falls flat, and in answer, so does Enjolras’. “Um. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Enjolras replies, and Grantaire is suddenly very aware that the other man’s arms are resting on his bend knees, that he’s leaning half-way over him, and he wishes the clothes were bigger so he could crawl into them and disappear. He sits up instead, carefully scooting himself backwards until he’s leaning against the wall. Enjolras crawls over to sit beside him, only little space between them, elbows brushing as he shifts. Grantaire almost wishes he would press them together again, would keep his arm around him, but he is also glad that he doesn’t.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better. Slightly. Less panicky.” The sudden sense of withdrawal seemed to have been mostly his own mind playing tricks on him. As it is so wont to do.

“And less angry with me?”

Grantaire tenses, and looks straight ahead. “I’m not angry with you.”

“Right,” Enjolras says. “Because telling me to shut up after I’ve confessed that I love you gives such a nice air of good times.”

“Don’t…”

“You’re doing it again,” Enjolras’ tone is sharp. Grantaire’s presses his lips together, mouth turning into a thin line. “I’m… I have to admit, that wasn’t really the reaction I was expecting. Not that I was expecting you to react normally to it in any way, but telling me to shut up is perhaps a tad rude.” His voice turns even icier as he says that, and Grantaire almost wants to sigh: he can feel his headache building. He ignores his every instinct telling him to apologise. To stop while he’s ahead.

“Yeah, well,” Grantaire mumbles. “Would be boring without my constant mood-changes, wouldn’t it?”

Enjolras turns his head away. “Perhaps something has changed?” he asks, and fuck, his fists are clenched at his sides, and so are Grantaire’s, though it is so he can dig his fingernails into his palms, opening scrapes and wounds from earlier. “Perhaps the return of your memories brought along a certain clarity that it also did for me?”

It’s like a punch in the gut. Enjolras remembers. Enjolras _knows._ He knows and Grantaire cannot keep it together, cannot see his way out of this. So he remains silent, sitting in terror and waiting for the final blow, and when Enjolras finally turns to him his eyes are shining with tears, and that is the last thing Grantaire had expected.

“ _I saw it,”_ he hisses the words: Grantaire flinches. “I saw the goddamn painting Grantaire, don’t you dare tell me your feelings for me have changed overnight, I saw it and you cannot deny…”

“Painting?” he asks in confusion. “What painting?”

“Combeferre had it,” Enjolras continues, and he looks like he wants to shake Grantaire, make him understand what he’s talking about. It’s a pretty familiar look actually. “You painted me, Grantaire, back then, and it was… it was…” he stops himself with a huff, clearly annoyed at his own inability to properly articulate what he’s thinking. Which much be frustrating, considering that is a very new problem for him. “I just… if it is because you remember… how I treated you. I hope you realise that… I know I have said I was sorry, but with your memories returned, there seems more to be sorry for and…”

“Um,” Grantaire interrupts. “Which, um… which painting?”

Enjolras frowns. “You don’t remember?”

“Oh, no, I remember painting you, I just…” he’s blushing again. “Which one was it?”

Enjolras stares at him. “There is more than one? _”_

Oh, this is so fucking humiliating.

“… yes,” he admits.

“How _many_?”

Grantaire opens his mouth. Then he closes it again, only to let out a low sound of defeat, shrugging slightly with one shoulder. Enjolras face is a mess of delight and fear.

“A lot?”

Grantaire lets out the same noise of incoherence again. Enjolras actually laughs, and he cannot help but smile himself at the sound of that, devoted fool that he is. And then the man reaches out and cards his fingers through Grantaire’s curls, a familiar gesture that has his eyes shutting involuntarily from the pleasure of it. He’s missed it. He’s missed it too much.

“I’m sorry I told you to shut up,” he mumbles, words stumbling out, because he’ll say anything if it can make Enjolras keep touching him, keep looking at him with smiling eyes. He frowns too much: Grantaire never thought he’d be the one to make him smile instead.

“You’re probably not really,” Enjolras mumbles. Grantaire keeps his eyes closed. He doesn’t say anything.

“Your memories are back,” he says then, finally approaching the subject they’ve been stumbling around all night. Grantaire just barely refrains from grimacing, slowly opening his eyes.

“Yes,” he mumbles. _Don’t look at me. Please don’t look at me._

Enjolras looks at him.

“I just wanted… I just needed to say, um, thank-you.”

That… is not what he had been expecting.

“For what?” he asks, eyes wide. Enjolras frowns.

“You… ah…” he stops himself to shift closer, pulling gently at Grantaire’s hair until he looks at him. “For all that I am not all that fond of trivial socialising, I do count my friends among the most important aspects of my life. And it is a sad thing, and a thing I had feared, for someone like me to die on his own. You didn’t let me. So thank-you.”

Grantaire can’t breathe, even as Enjolras keeps caressing his face and hair, keeps smiling at him, softly and carefully, as if he’s afraid of an outburst, as if he somehow has something to be embarrassed about, confessing things like this, as if Grantaire’s opinion on this is something to fear or even listen to.

He had died with them. They had died together.

“You do realise,” he says, slowly, and angrily because he is angry, and it’s only at himself, but he has always been so bad at conveying that in productive ways. “That the only reason I was able to do that was because I had passed out drunkenly during the fighting.”

Enjolras hands stills. “R…” his voice is too soft. It’s not right.

“You do realise,” he continues, voice growing louder. “That I left you all to rot in your graves, that I found my time more worthily spend staring down the bottom of a bottle than trying to help my friends, the only people to ever accept me. You do realise that I was the worst kind of coward and that I broke every promise I had ever made to the only person who had ever mattered, all because everything that I say, everything that I put up is a front to hide the ugliness of my cowardice, something you saw for what it was, and when I walked up to you it wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart, it was because if you died I had nothing, absolutely nothing left to live for and dying with you there was possibly the most cowardly thing I have ever done, and that is saying a lot,” he’s shouting now. “A whole _fucking_ lot when you’re me and have spent your whole life fucking hiding because you’re too pathetic…”

Enjolras’ fist hits the wall at the space between their heads so hard it’s a surprise there is no dent in the thick wood afterwards. He’s let go of Grantaire. His eyes are ablaze.

“You are going to stop speaking,” Enjolras gets the words out between clenched teeth, and Grantaire almost wants to back away, except he is transfixed, shocked into staying where he is. “You are going to stop degrading yourself, and degrading me as well in doing so, something I am pretty fucking sure you’re not even intending. You’re going to stop making wild and ridiculous assumptions about what I think of you, and then refuse to listen when I try to tell you the truth!” He stops and takes a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself down. Grantaire still finds that he cannot move.

“You’re not a pathetic coward,” Enjolras says then, voice lower, though the anger is still running clear. “You say what you did you did because of selfish reasons, but my reasons for appreciating it are as selfish. I didn’t wish to die alone. I had always thought you detested the cause, detested me, at times, even. And I was always frustrated with you because I believed that you could be so much more than you were, and when you… when you walked up to me, in that moment, you were... you were everything you could be, and everything I had ever…” his voice turns slightly shaky. “When we had our memories returned… I’ve never lost faith, but knowing that I failed, knowing that we had all died, it was a blow and… you don’t believe in anything. But in that moment, when I took your hand, you believed in me, and I have never been more thankful for anything in my life, save perhaps for the fact that you are still here with me now, for however long you might wish to stay, and if it is my feelings that are making you hesitate on that, then let me assure you that I think you none of those things you claim for yourself, that I think you are one of the bravest, kindest, most fantastic people I have met, and I love you, I love you so much that… that if I could paint, I would paint nothing but you, over and over again.”

_Paint nothing but you._

He had painted Enjolras. He had painted him when the man had made him laugh, mocking or truthful. He had painted him when he had loved him, on the days when it was fierce and unyielding. He had painted him on the days when he hated the very sight of him, hated that he couldn’t keep away. He had painted him on days when the sun shone so brightly that his studio was almost too hot to be in, on days when the cold had laid siege to the rooms, days when his hand had been hurting from curling around a brush because he had been painting all day, painting nonsense and painting Enjolras.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Grantaire says.

“You’re being rude,” Enjolras tells him, and Grantaire almost _(almost)_ smiles. It hurts too much to smile, though.

So that’s it then. Enjolras fell in love with him in that moment, and that moment is the fuel of all of this. Grantaire wants to keep raging: wants to yell and shout, and tell the other man that he _can’t do this_ , that it isn’t fair, that he _loathed_ him before, he could feel it in his very bones, no matter what Enjolras says now, but he is too weak and too scared of the truth.

“You need to get some rest,” Enjolras says, and he’s probably right, he’s quite often right, actually, not that Grantaire will ever tell him that, so he lefts himself be pulled down on the cot: exhaustion takes him almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He wakes only once during the night and doesn’t know where he is, but there is an angel awake beside him pressing kisses to his face until he falls asleep again, so he thinks he is possibly somewhere happy. He’s been wrong before though.


End file.
